


Language Barriers

by EaglePursuit



Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [19]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aliens, Post-Gravity Falls, Returning to Gravity Falls, Short, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25613659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EaglePursuit/pseuds/EaglePursuit
Summary: Part 19 of Another Summer's Sunny Days. Dipper helps Fiddleford McGucket regain the power of coherent speech and he shares the tale of how he became stuck in Crash Site Omega. Meanwhile, Ford relates a personal story about how he came to learn about magic spells
Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792519
Kudos: 15





	Language Barriers

**Author's Note:**

> Based on: Disney’s Gravity Falls  
> Created by: Alex Hirsch
> 
> Beta readers: my wife & PK2317  
> Art by: KID | @KIDWMA

Language Barriers

Dipper sat on his bed, studying Dana’s grimoire and taking notes in the journal. “Hey Mabel, Dana was telling me a little bit about this the other day. Apparently, demonology spells can be cast by anyone because the magic comes from the demons. So, like, Gideon or anybody else could summon Bill with a demonology ritual spell, but there’s also demonology counter-spells, like the ritual spell we did to enter the dreamscape to fight Bill and even the zodiac, even though it didn’t work. It’s bad because anyone can bring demons into the world, but also good because anyone can fight them with the right spell. Enchanted objects like that wind wand Dana made for me can also be used by anyone because the magic is locked inside and activated by a predetermined trigger. However, all other forms of magic can only be performed by witches.”

Mabel looked up from the scrapbook she was working on. “And you too, huh?” She frowned disapprovingly. “Are you sure you should be reading that, Bro-bro?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not copying any of her spells. I’m just looking at how the magic works. Besides, I tried to give her bag back to her, but she wouldn’t let me. I think she wanted me to have it, so that someone on her side could use her power when she couldn’t,” he speculated with the end of his pen in his mouth. “Anyway, I also think that the invisible wizard either wasn’t human or was strictly using enchanted items that cast spells since he was probably not a witch.” He held up the grimoire. “There’s so much here to learn. This thing is more fun to read than the D.D. n’ M.D. rule book! I haven’t even gotten to the chapters on reagents, unguents, catalysts, elixirs, and potions yet.”

Mabel blew an extra big raspberry. “Oh, Dipper. Only you could say something that nerdy. Just don’t go around casting spells for the fun of it. We don’t need another zombie incident.”

Dipper chewed his pen. “Hmm. That reminds me, I need to go ask Ford where he learned the spells that he wrote down in the journal.” He picked up Journal 3 and went down the stairs to the elevator hidden behind the vending machine, then took it down to Ford’s lab in the basement.

Ford and McGucket were sitting cross-legged on thin foam mats, listening to relaxing sitar music when Dipper stepped out of the elevator. He approached his great uncle, but hesitated, not wanting to interrupt.

Ford opened his eyes and greeted him. “Dipper, my boy. I’ve taught Fiddleford how to meditate again in hopes of restoring his capacity for speech.”

Dipper glanced dubiously at the hillbilly. “Is it working, Grunkle Ford?”

Ford sighed. “Not yet. But I’ve all but given up trying to translate his hamboning. What can I do for you?”

Dipper opened Journal 3 to the page titled ‘Spells’ and showed it to him. “Grunkle Ford, you wrote some information here on magic spells, and even included a spell to summon zombies. Then there’s the spell later for how to enter the Dreamscape to fight Bill. But you didn’t write down where you discovered any of this.”

Ford sat down on a stool and beckoned for Dipper to do the same. “The spell for fighting Bill in the Dreamscape is easy. It was recorded on the wall of a cave near the spell for summoning him. But the other page is a different story. 

“Like many things from my earlier life before I was pulled through the portal, this is a bittersweet memory for me. You see, when I was doing my research here in the early 80s, I became lonely for the company of a woman and—” He stopped and looked at Dipper with concern. “Are you feeling okay, Dipper? You just broke out in a sweat. Anyway, initially, I repressed these urges to focus on my work, but as time wore on, I couldn’t ignore them. I was in the prime of my life. 

“One day, I met a young woman named Lilly. We had a brief, but passionate relationship.” He paused to shake his head at his great nephew. “Really, Dipper? You asked the question. Just stop fidgeting and sit still. You’re as bad as your sister sometimes! I’m getting to the part about the magic spells; just be patient. 

“As I was saying, we went on a series of adventures together, studying the peculiarities of her hometown, Gravity Falls. We were nearly inseparable for a time. As luck would have it, I was in her apartment one day when I found a strange book in a drawer. I opened it and discovered it was full of magic. I was only able to read a few pages before she found me looking at it and angrily took it away. Thanks to my eidetic memory, I was able to retain most of what I saw and recorded it in the journal. Sadly, she never let me see that magic book again and refused to talk about it.”

Dipper looked down at the journal. “What happened to Lilly?”

“Shortly after that, she discovered I was communicating with Bill Cipher. She tried to persuade me to disassociate myself with that fiend, and oh, how I wish I had listened to her. She never spoke to me again. Now that happy time is just another thing Bill stole from me.” Ford’s countenance was clouded by bitterness.

“Wow, that's really sad, Grunkle Ford.” Dipper said sympathetically. He contemplated Fiddleford, chanting a nonsensical mantra on the foam mat, and had an epiphany. “I think I know something that might help McGucket!” Dipper raced upstairs and returned with Dana’s grimoire and the palm of his right hand smeared with several questionable substances.

Ford leaped up from his stool. “What are you doing!?”

Dipper held up his hand to show his great uncle. “Just watch.” He placed it on McGucket’s forehead and recited a spell out of the book. 

Magical light poured out of the orifices on McGucket’s head along with a low rumble. Then he fell over backwards onto the mat. The old hillbilly took a deep breath and sputtered. “Well, I’ll be hornswoggled. My flipperty-flapper is makin’ th’ right noises ‘gin.”

Ford turned from McGucket to Dipper. “That book! Where did it come from?”

Dipper clutched it tightly to his chest. “Um, I’m holding it for a friend of mine, and I don’t think she wants me showing it around. I have taken some notes in the journal though. I’ll share them with you later.”

Ford crouched down to look him in the eye. “Dipper, I’ve seen it before. Eidetic memory, remember?” He tapped his temple.

Dipper cringed and held the book up so his great uncle could see the worn black cover.

The color drained from Ford’s face. “My gosh! It  _ is _ Lilly’s book. It really is. The exact one. I won’t ask you to let me look through it. Trying to read it angered someone important to me once before, a long time ago. But I would very much like to speak to your friend.”

Dipper looked down at the spellbook and frowned ruefully. “That’s going to have to wait. She’s kind of grounded right now.”

* * *

Fiddleford Hadron McGucket sat at the dinner table in the Mystery Shack’s dining room. His old partner, Ford, sat across from him, trying to remember how to put a cassette in the Tapeman. Dipper, Mabel, Stan, and Soos gathered around the table to hear his tale.

Ford finally loaded the cassette and pressed the record button on the Tapeman. “Okay, Fiddleford. What happened to you?”

McGucket stroked his long, white beard and glanced thoughtfully at the ceiling for a moment. “I think I were traumertized and scramble-dooed muh thinkin’ parts with usin’ that ol’ mem’ry whatchamahoozy too many times.”

Ford sighed patiently. “No, Fiddleford. What happened to you at Crash Site Omega?”

* * *

McGucket dangled in the darkness by a rope tied around his waist deep in the bowels of the ancient saucer wreck. The other end of the rope was looped over a rusty pulley mounted high overhead and held tight between the sparse teeth in his mouth. He reached out with one hand and located a solid metal wall by touch. He turned himself in mid-air to face the wall and felt along it with his hands till he found what he was looking for; the key component in his next great invention. It was about the size of a basketball, a multitude of jagged edges and thin rods projecting from the wall.

McGucket wrapped both hands around it and tried to pull it off. The application of force disrupted his delicate balancing act and sent him cartwheeling into space. It took him several minutes of feeling around in the dark to find it again. This time he pulled a thin tool out of his beard. It was a device of his own design, which he called a whatchamajigger. He placed the tapered end of the tool against the juncture where the alien object attached to the wall. He flipped a pair of dark goggles over his eyes with his other hand, then firmly grasped the component again. 

He pushed a button on the back of the whatchamajigger. There was a blinding flash of light and the buzzing, crackling sound of an arc of electricity. The object came loose in his hand with a sizzle and a faint plume of acrid smoke. He held it up to his face. His eyes were still adjusting back to the darkness after the flash from the whatchamajigger; he couldn’t see it. Instead he gave it a kiss, still holding the rope in his teeth, then let it go. It fell for a few seconds, then hit with a muffled thump, right on the old quilted blanket he’d positioned below him before attempting the retrieval.

McGucket took the rope from his teeth and slowly lowered himself down to where his day’s prizes were waiting, the pulley protesting loudly all the way down. He arranged the items on his blanket, then tied the corners together and looped them over the end of a stick, forming a bindle. He lit an old-fashioned kerosine lantern, then slung the bindle over his shoulder and began walking slowly, retracing his steps back to the hidden entrance.

He was still making his way through the belly of the ship when a piece of debris fell, clanging and clattering its way down a chasm, from high above him. McGucket dove under a slanted bulkhead for cover, expecting a cave-in, but no other pieces came down. He strained his ears to listen. Somewhere high overhead, footsteps were echoing faintly.

“What in the tarnation’s a-transpirin’ up there?” He was paralyzed with indecision for a moment, before deciding to indulge his curiosity. He extinguished the lantern’s flame and set it down with the bindle. Then he started climbing up the chasm walls to find the source of the footsteps.

McGucket scaled four levels hand over bare foot until he glimpsed a beam of light reflecting dully off the ancient walls of the saucer for a second. Whatever dislodged the debris was close.

He peeked cautiously around a corner and perceived two humanoid silhouettes framed by the reflecting light. He watched the shadows for a moment to determine their heading, then scampered off to get ahead of them. McGucket had been to this section of the saucer more times than he could remember —true of most places, given his old habit of using the memory gun on himself— and knew it by heart.

He arrived at an intersection of corridors that the two intruders would have to pass through. There was a jumble of exposed structural members, conduit, and wiring dangling overhead. McGucket leaped into the air and pulled himself up into it to hide.

A minute later the roving beams of light appeared, preceding the two humanoid creatures. McGucket leaned down to see them clearly as they wandered underneath his hiding spot, his long white beard dangling below him.

The first being walked under him. It appeared to be a partially bald, dark-haired man with a mustache wearing a nondescript black suit. In his curiosity McGucket leaned down just a little more.

The second man, younger and blond with the same style of suit, walked under him as well, brushing the top of his head against McGucket’s beard, and released a panicky scream. The man spun around and swatted at the air with his free hand. McGucket quickly scampered back into his hiding place.

The first man spun around and pointed his light and a weapon at the mass of wire and metal on the ceiling. “Get a hold of yourself, Trigger!”

Agent Trigger regained his composure and drew his weapon as well, also pointing it at McGucket’s hiding place. “Something touched my head!”

Agent Powers side-eyed his partner. “It was probably a cobweb.”

Trigger whined in protest, “But we haven’t seen any spiderwebs or spiders down here at all. It’s creepy.”

“Let’s keep moving.” Powers’ tone suggested he would brook no further quailing from his partner.

They turned to continue, but McGucket jumped down from his hiding place behind them. “By gummity! What’s a couple a gussied up federales scrap-doodling around down’n here fer? If’n y’all after muh syrup still, y’all can just say so.”

The agents spun around and trained their guns on the old scientist-hillbilly. “What kind of horrifying monster is it, Powers?” asked Trigger. “Just being close to it makes me nauseated.”

McGucket held his hands in the air peaceably. “Easy does er, fellers. I was just hornswogglin’ ya ‘bout the still.”

Trigger bent down close to McGucket’s face; slowly and loudly he enunciated his words, “We. Don’t. Understand. Your. Advanced. Alien. Language.”

McGucket tried a different approach. He pointed to the agents, “Do y’all…,” then to himself, “need a feller,” he wiggled two fingers across the palm of his hand, “to ahelp you git on outta here?”

Powers scrutinized the old-timer. “I think it wants us to follow it.”

McGucket sighed. “Flapjacks an’ fiddlebanjos! Y'all're addled up in the head worse’n me. I just need to fetch muh stuff, then we can git.” He headed back down the corridor he had come from and the agents followed him with their guns pointed at his back. He turned his head and glanced over his shoulder. “I ‘spect y’all aren’t gonna just hootenanny down the edges like I dun. So we’re a-gonna have to honey fogel around the long way.”

“It’s bizarre language fills me with dread and yet, I feel compelled to mock it with derision and scorn. Funny, isn’t it?” Trigger remarked.

“I assure you, Trigger, if I were capable of experiencing humor, I would not be laughing,” Power replied gruffly as they continued down the ancient corridors.

McGucket showed them to a ramp that led down several levels. “Alright, fellers. We gotta sashay down yonder. That bein’s where muh effects are.” They followed him closely, their guns never wavering from his center of mass.

The hillbilly led them through another set of corridors with small rooms off of them, some visible through open doors, before venturing into the open area at the bottom of the chasm where his bindle and lantern were waiting beneath the slanted bulkhead.

“Alrighty, this here’s muh stuff.” McGucket picked up his belongings, but Agent Powers snatched the bindle from his hands and opened it.

“What do we have here?” Powers pulled out the object that McGucket had worked so hard to salvage.

Trigger carefully ran his hand over the jagged edges of the device. “I think this is what that other one was looking for!”

“What? That thingamabob? I were goin’ to use that to mash up muh vittles on account o’ muh toofers lickity-splittin’ outta muh tater trap.” McGucket scratched his ear in confusion.

Powers passed the object to Trigger. “Here, we need to take this back to the lab. I suspect it’s some kind of weapon.”

McGucket knitted his brow in frustration. “Sweet sarsaparilla! Y’all give that back now, ya’here!” He tried to reach for it, but Trigger held it up higher in the air. McGucket leaped up as high as he could. “Grabbity-grabbity!” He managed to wrap his fingers around some of its projecting rods and pulled it loose. “Warm up yer banjos, boys!” he cried as he scampered off into the darkness with the alien device.

Powers fired a shot that missed the wily old coot. The lead slug ricocheted off a bulkhead and whistled past Trigger’s ear. He hastily holstered the gun. “After it!”

Agent Trigger chased McGucket as he dodged down one corridor after another through the middle of the ship. He couldn’t quite catch up with the nimble senior citizen.

McGucket found his way to another vertical chasm and attempted to climb to the next level up. It proved more awkward and difficult than he expected with the alien device tucked under his arm. The agent managed to leap up and grab one of the hillbilly’s scabrous bare feet before he could get away, causing McGucket to fall backwards on top of him with a shout of alarm.

Trigger wrapped a muscular forearm around the old man’s neck and tried to wrestle the mysterious object away from him as they rolled across the floor. McGucket used his free hand to stuff his long, greasy beard in the agent’s face. Trigger recoiled, gagging in disgust, and loosened his hold on McGucket’s throat. That was all the opening the hillbilly needed; he chomped down on the agent’s wrist with the few teeth that time and neglect had left him. Trigger cursed him out and pulled his arm back.

McGucket somersaulted out of the agent’s grasp and shim-shammed his way up the chasm wall to the next deck up as Trigger scrambled to his feet. The agent directed the beam of his flashlight across the face of the chasm like a searchlight, but couldn’t catch sight of his quarry.

After the close call, McGucket decided not to return to collect his bindle and lantern, but instead to make his way straight to the entrance, high on the top level of the crashed saucer. He climbed cautiously and slowly with the device held tightly in his hand. He could still hear his would-be captor shouting and stumbling around somewhere below him.

After what seemed like hours of cautious creeping in the dark corridors near the upper levels, he was able to smell fresh outside air. The shaft that led up to the entrance was dimly lit. Someone had left the cover off it. He paused to listen. There was no sign of either agent, so he approached the cavity in the saucer’s ceiling. He leapt up to catch the bottom of it with one hand and as a reward for all his caution, was tackled roughly to the floor.

“Holy hootenanny! Git offa me!” McGucket struggled to free himself from the strong hands that grasped him.

“You’re not escaping again, infiltrator!” Powers said as he pinned the old-timer down with a knee on his slender ribcage, stifling his breath. “I can’t let you wreak havoc on humanity with your dangerous weapons.”

“Keep tha’ durned whatzit then! I’ll jus’ git me ‘nother un!” He bit down on the agent’s knee.

Powers winced in pain and brought his gun up above his head, then chopped down with it viciously like a club. The muzzle made contact with McGucket’s skull and the old hillbilly went limp.

* * *

“An’ when I came to, I were stuck to the wall in that itty bitty room, an’ them fellers an’ the thingamabobber were gone.” McGucket finished his tale.

“Oh my gosh!” Mabel stroked the old man’s hand. “How long were you stuck in there? How did you survive?”

McGucket scratched himself thoughtfully. “I reckon I don’t rightly know. Muh brain went all widdershins tryin’ to keep track. I kep’ alive by eatin’ the varmints what reside in muh beard. An’ I passed the time by hamboning fer help.”

Ford looked up from his notes. “This whole situation is disturbing for multiple reasons. One, these agents know about Crash Site Omega, and apparently have for months, even when we ourselves went down there to find Fiddleford. Two, the alien that they have captured is here on Earth to look for something. Three, whatever that is, it’s apparently now at the military research facility.”

“Is there anything we can do about it?” asked Dipper.

“Well, I say we do nothin’,” Stan interjected. “It’s none of our business.”

“What!? Seriously!? Oh come on!” Dipper and Mabel protested.

Ford sighed. “Stan is right. There’s no reason for us to get involved. And I’d rather not attract the scrutiny of the federal government again. And for that matter, we definitely need to stay away from Crash Site Omega from now on.”

“I just feel sad for the poor alien stuck in that prison cell,” Mabel pouted.

“If we stuck our noses in this business, we could be sittin’ there with him,” Stan reminded her. “And I’ve sat in my share of jail cells. The ones with examination tables are the ones you want to stay away from the most.”

Be sure to read the next adventure:

Invasion!


End file.
